Total Bastard Acceptance Movement

I've spent some time in my life, at various different stages in development, trying to actively construct who I was in, more or less, purely aesthetic ways. This ranged from me wanting to change my name to Mike when I was 8, to trying to wear 3 watches at a time when I was 11, and the dress-like-a-fucking-idiot era throughout high school. Most people would admit to doing this to some extent in their shake-your-head-and-grin-I-was-dumb days, but beyond high school graduation, any accusation of doing this is akin to calling them and their mother a total phony.

Any labeling, even accurate labeling, would threaten to destabilize society by sending every barista, bookstore clerk, and graphic designer into a civil war. You know, if they cared about what your fag hipster mouth had to say.

That's a lot of angry for the post-angst generation*.

I'm not here to swim in that kind of hypocrisy. I've got too much more to consider.

There has been a feeling in my belly sometimes when I have an introspective moment after a few months of thoughtless action on my part. It is the strange acknowledgment and acceptance that one is a total jerk, and sees no real need to remedy this. At those moments, I assumed it was just a part of growing into a man. The fading of anxiety and the general worry that has made a whole lot of being and doing so goddamn hard is going away, and being replaced with the kind of self-appeasement that you see in the grins and expensive suits and ties of truly evil men.

So much of me wants to be them. It can still happen.
Examples:

• One of those sociopaths that lives two lives with two spouses and families on different ends of the same town.
• A cunning plagiarist.
• A marketing executive.

But I'm starting to think that may not be a great idea.
More as this develops.

There was a time at work not too long ago, won't say which job, but:
A man who looked like old modern Neil Young came to the counter and bought a bunch of pencils. As he was leaving the store, I turned to a coworker and said "Man, that guy looked just like Neil Young!". My coworker asked me to point out who it was. I pointed to the old man leaving the store, and said "That guy!". Right at that moment, the man threw up heavy-style.

I knew that the man must have been thinking, "If one more person says I look like Neil Young, I am going to fucking throw up." My message across the collective human unconsciousness must have sent him over that edge. If he does that all the time, the man needs a maid. Hey hey, My my.

(*NO SUCH THING)